Mrs Smith's Big Problem
by Rinon u-Cuthalion
Summary: Some quest chains just seem to go on forever. That's all right of course, as long as you are doing something worthwhile.


Mrs. Smith's Problem. Level: 31. Size: Small Fellowship.  
You speak to Mrs. Smith in Rivendell.  
Mrs. Smith says, "You there! Could you spare a moment to help me? I have all these old papers I need to shred, but I'm too busy do it myself. Would you be willing to shred them for me?"  
Challenge accepted!  
Objective: Take the papers to the Mithril-bladed Shredder.  
You look on your map for the quest tracker icon. It is not there, so you ask your kin where it is. They tell you that it is in Moria.  
Bummer. You ride to Moria, while the kin chat fills up with people making mysterious jokes about you. They seem to think that you are doomed. "I'll show them!", you think.  
You arrive in Moria, find the shredder, and click on it. **Your standing is too low**. You are too embarrassed to ask your kin for help, so you do a quick Google search. Apparently you must be Friend to the Moria Dwarves before they will let you use their shredder. This is no problem because you have a level-capped character with tons of unused Moria rep items sitting in her vault. You do the logoff/logon dance, mail yourself Moria rep items, and gain the correct standing.  
**Shredding . . . (4,167/5,238) Your connection to the server has been lost.**  
Eventually, you plow through the whole stack of papers.  
Objective: Take the papers to Gaffer Gamgee to use as mulch.  
Thank goodness for Swift Travel - still, going from Michael Delving to Hobbiton takes a while.  
Gaffer Gamgee says, "Thank you, friend!"  
Objective: Talk to Mrs. Smith in Rivendell.  
You forgot to bind the the Rivendell milestone. You use the Bree milestone instead and swift travel to Rivendell.  
Mrs Smith says, "Oh, dear! I gave you the wrong papers to shred! Those were actually the coupons Bilbo clipped from the Rivendell Times. Please, you must go and get them back; I'm sure they can be put back together again!"  
Objective: Talk to Gaffer Gamgee.  
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. If you were smart, you would have cancelled the quest now, but blind optimism keeps you going. You go back to Hobbiton, never mind how you get there.  
Gaffer Gamgee says, "This is unheard-of! While you were gone, a raiding party of Bath Salts Addicted Goblins came down and carried off the bags of paper! They said something about taking them to Carn Dum to use in the warg-stables."  
Carn Dum? This is supposed to be a level 31 quest! You have a meltdown on kin chat. To your surprise, a number of high-level kin members volunteer to help, and they put together a group to escort you into Carn Dum. Why do they do this?  
They feel your pain. They have all done this quest before. Some of them have done it on all their alts. On the way to Carn Dum, an officer tells you about the bad old days before F2P when the goblins took the papers to Gramsfoot instead of Carn Dum.  
Your group blasts its way through Carn Dum, and you eventually find your shredded papers.  
Objective: Take the papers to Mrs. Smith in Rivendell.  
One of the hunters in your group is kind enough to port you to Rivendell.  
Mrs. Smith says, "My goodness! Those papers are really torn up. My old eyes just aren't good enough to put them back together; you'll have to do it for me I guess."  
Your heart sinks into your shoes when Mrs. Smith gives you an apprentice Scholar recipie for Reconstituted Coupons. You do not have any scholar alts. You ask your kin for help, but they are not feeling quite _that_ helpful.  
If you were humble, you would cancel the quest now, but you have decided you will complete this quest even if it kills you. Be careful what you wish for. You spend around an hour on the trade channel trying to sucker someone into reconstituting the coupons for you, but have no luck.  
You have only two characters. You have a premium account. That leaves you with precisely one option. You roll a Dwarven champion named Ragequit, take him through the intro quests, and as soon as possible, make a run for the nearest scholar's library. While he sorts his way through 5,238 papers, you make an appointment with your psychiatrist.  
Finally he is done. He doesn't have enough money to mail the papers back to your other character, so you must logoff/logon twice to do a money transfer. You manage the details in an altered state of consciousness, induced by a sinking feeling that the quest is probably not done.  
You are wrong.  
Mrs. Smith says, "Oh, there you are! What took you so long? Anyway, the coupons have expired by now, but Bilbo sends his thanks, saying that it's the thought that counts."  
Quest Rewards: 150 XP. 8 silver 45 copper. Two Lesser Athelas Essences.


End file.
